What with Fritz dropping bombs from his airplanes, our horses stampeding and screaming like wild things, and our own explosives bursting in every conceivable direction with a thousand different roars, the scene can be better imagined than described.  We saved about 10,000 rounds out of that entire dump.  For a distance of twenty miles the reflection of the fire extended, the rockets themselves being visible for a space of ten miles.  I don’t suppose since the world began was there ever a scene of such awful beauty; it was a bursting Vesuvius with the co-mingled radiant beauties of a thousand rainbows.

When there was nothing further that we could do, we regained our frightened mounts and resumed our journey.  Such a road of confusion!  The ground being wet, turning the chalky earth into white, the moving, wriggling vehicles of every kind and description afforded a magnificent target for the marksmen of the air and casualties here, there and everywhere along the road was the order of the night.

A short distance along, the sounds of battle in the air reached our ears, and looking up I saw two shadows passing between our eyes and moon, then two more.  Suddenly our searchlights opened up, and there, in full view, were four planes, two British and two German, engaged in one of those struggles which practically forms the only feature in this war around which is thrown any of the elements of romance that appeals to all the instinct of a vivid imagination.  It was a fair field and no favor.  The battle had been on about three or four minutes when one of the British birds landed on Fritz, driving him down nose first.  He could not regain control and he dashed headlong into the earth to destruction.  Our fellow then rose and went to the assistance of his pal and they made short work of the second Taube.

That is the only time I have ever witnessed a scene of that kind under those circumstances, and it is a rare occurrence indeed that one has the privilege of seeing such a struggle with such a background.

We were now among the batteries; to the right and left of us the guns had commenced speaking to the German roads, and the ammunition dumps there, in retaliation for the destruction of our gun-food; the anti-aircraft guns were also getting into the chorus, together with the pom-poms, and the whole swelled into a mighty chorus of sound that filled every crack and crevice in the air, making one feel as if he were inhaling sound rather than ozone.

As we neared Pozieres a 9.02 howitzer gun on our left fired a shell that exploded in the gun and blew the gun and crew in all directions.  The shell also started some ammunition going that was lying about and it was under the greatest difficulty that the men, whose lives were not lost in the first explosion, managed to get away.  The men were trying to manhandle the remainder of the guns of the battery and we jumped off our horses, fastened them to an old wagon lying in the ditch, and headed over to lend a hand.  With much tugging and perspiring we saved three of the guns.